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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Talleyrand, the noted French statesman and diplomat, died in 1838, well before the advent of the Internet era. But his aphorism is as useful now as it was then.

"This is worse than a crime," he famously said, "it's a blunder."

We are in the midst of one of those periodic clusters of plagiarism cases. BuzzFeed fires a writer for serial plagiarism. A veteran New York Times reporter uses material from Wikipedia without attribution. And U.S. Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., is discovered to have borrowed work from elsewhere for his master's thesis.

That plagiarism is morally wrong is beyond argument. It's theft. But beyond that, it's just so stupid.

There always has been the risk of getting caught, even back in Talleyrand's day. But in the Internet era, the odds have increased astronomically. Your audience is worldwide. Someone is likely to notice. The Internet culture is packed with citizen media critics, and they are likely to track you down, which is exactly what happened in the BuzzFeed saga.

The flip side, of course, is that the Internet makes plagiarism so easy. Encountering writer's block? An infinite array of material is just a cut and a paste away. You don't even have to spend any energy writing down or typing all those words.

But what a price you will pay.

The BuzzFeed case dramatizes how Web detectives can bring you down. It also illustrates the danger of taunting.

Benny Johnson, BuzzFeed's viral politics editor (now there's a title), brought on his own demise when he accused another website, the Independent Journal Review, of stealing his stuff. The matter in question involved an item about former president George H.W. Bush's eye-catching red and white socks. (I know.)

That inspired two anonymous Twitter users to look into Johnson's work, they told Talking Points Memo in an e-mail interview. But they also were motivated by concerns about how BuzzFeed does business. They created a blog and published their findings about Johnson, which were quite damning. Soon Johnson was gone.

BuzzFeed has attracted huge amounts of traffic with its preternatural ability to create endless streams of viral content. Some of it is clever; some if it is silly; some of it is sleazy. As I write this, it is featuring such fare as "19 Women Reveal Their Most Cringe-Worthy Sexual Experiences" and "Look At This Pit Bull Princess and Have A More Fabulous Day."

But as BuzzFeed has evolved, it has also embraced serious newsgathering, covering national politics, establishing foreign bureaus and launching an investigative reporting unit. To his credit, after initially seeming to downplay the situation, Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith did the right thing. Following a BuzzFeed investigation of Johnson's handiwork, which found 41 instances of copying material from others, Smith dispatched the reporter. The site's forays into serious news made it incumbent on the organization to take journalistic standards seriously, Smith said. And he's right.

BuzzFeed has attracted huge amounts of traffic with its preternatural ability to create endless streams of viral content. Some of it is clever; some if it is silly; some of it is sleazy. As I write this, it is featuring such fare as "19 Women Reveal Their Most Cringe-Worthy Sexual Experiences" and "Look At This Pit Bull Princess and Have A More Fabulous Day."

But as BuzzFeed has evolved, it has also embraced serious newsgathering, covering national politics, establishing foreign bureaus and launching an investigative reporting unit. To his credit, after initially seeming to downplay the situation, Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith did the right thing. Following a BuzzFeed investigation of Johnson's handiwork, which found 41 instances of copying material from others, Smith dispatched the reporter. The site's forays into serious news made it incumbent on the organization to take journalistic standards seriously, Smith said. And he's right.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Buried deep in Google’s earnings release this afternoon was word of a pretty big management shift: Nikesh Arora, the company’s Chief Business Officer, is leaving after a decade with the company. He will be taking a role at SoftBank as their Vice Chairman, and as CEO of their SoftBank Internet and Media subsidiary.

Omid Kordestani, who has been an adviser to Larry Page since stepping down from his role as Senior VP of Worldwide Sales in 2009, will take over Nikesh’s role for the time being.

Larry Page commented on the news on his Google+ page:

After almost ten years, Nikesh Arora our Chief Business Officer, has decided to leave Google to join one of our partners, SoftBank, as Vice Chairman of SoftBank Corp. and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media. I remember first meeting him at the British Museum, which for some reason Sergey had decided would be a good interview location. Nikesh has been a tremendous leader, adviser and mentor to many Googlers — including me. We have learned a lot together, and had a lot of fun along the way.

Omid Kordestani, who was our business founder and led our sales teams for many years, will be stepping in to lead our business organization for now. When we hired Omid we had no business people so we had all the engineers interview him around a ping pong table. I think he survived because he is actually an engineer! Omid has always been one of my closest advisors, especially since I became CEO again in 2011. He personifies the entrepreneurial spirit that is so important to Google. There is nothing Omid doesn’t know about Google, our customers and partners, and I know that under his leadership the team will excel.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO — Popular mobile dating app Tinder is being sued for sexual harassment and discrimination by a former marketing executive.

Whitney Wolfe, Tinder's former marketing vice president, claims she was subjected to a pattern of abusive behavior including inappropriate private messages from a company co-founder while working at Tinder.

In the suit, she alleges Tinder co-founder and marketing chief Justin Mateen stripped Wolfe of her co-founder title, telling her that having a "24?year-old girl" as a co-founder made the company "seem like a joke."

Wolfe also alleges Mateen called her a "whore" in front of Chief Executive Officer Sean Rad. Mateen could not be reached for comment.

When she complained, Wolfe said she was forced out of the company. The case was filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

"I had hoped this would be resolved confidentially, but after months of failed attempts, I have decided to pursue this suit," Wolfe said in a statement.

Tinder's parent companies, IAC and Match.com, are also named as defendants.

"Immediately upon receipt of the allegations contained in Ms. Wolfe's complaint, Mr. Mateen was suspended pending an ongoing internal investigation," IAC said in an emailed statement. "Through that process, it has become clear that Mr. Mateen sent private messages to Ms. Wolfe containing inappropriate content. We unequivocally condemn these messages, but believe that Ms. Wolfe's allegations with respect to Tinder and its management are unfounded."

The technology industry has come under fire for its lack of women in technical and executive ranks and for not creating a work environment that is more welcoming to women.

Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, filed a lawsuit against her former venture capital firm for harassment and discrimination in 2012. Kleiner Perkins has denied the allegations and is fighting the lawsuit.

Earlier this year, a female employee of GitHub accused the San Francisco startup, of harassment. The company investigated and said it found no evidence of harassment but that there had been "mistakes and errors of judgment."

Last month, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel got into hot water when explicit emails he sent while a student at Stanford University surfaced. Spiegel apologized for the emails which contained statements that were demeaning to women.